The Ballad of Sinclair
by Victor Castlewood
Summary: A teen couple takes a wrong turn into suspense and terror.


**The Ballad of Sinclair**

By Castlewood

**I. Fooling Around. Hit and Run. The Flat.**

Getting lost never felt so good. That's because Bobbi, my girlfriend, was playing with me as I drove my car. She sat in the passenger seat with her left hand tucked in my pants, and well, I got so distracted I took a wrong turn and ended up getting us lost. We were returning to my house from a late movie at the theater, and in minutes I was driving down an old, country dirt road at night while getting jerked off by my girlfriend. Like I said: getting lost never felt so good. At least something satisfying was finally happening that night. The shitty movie starred Sandra Bullock – a romantic comedy about love and marriage. I think I fell asleep twice. But, when we got in the car and pulled out of that driveway, Bobbi's hand went south and I lost all care of where I was driving. She seemed to think the whole situation was funny, and quite frankly I did, too, regardless of the fact that we had no idea where the hell we were. The moon was as red as blood, and full, like a tomato in the sky. Creepy.

"Bobbi, stop it," I grinned. My brain said that, actually. My hard-on was saying, "Keep going."

"No," she answered. "I'm having fun."

"This is fun?" I asked. "Torturing me while I drive? At night? I'm trying to get back on a regular road and you're distracting me, and all you can say is that you're having fun?"

"Well, I can stop talking if you want me to."

"Yeah right!" I laughed. "There isn't a thing in the world that can stop you from talking."

This is where my girlfriend proved me wrong. She leaned in closer to me, although I didn't watch her; I was focusing on the road with two hands on the wheel. She unzipped my pants even more and proceeded to lower her head onto me. We were dumb kids – what can I say? Hell, I had only gotten my license a few months ago; we were both seventeen.

In between watching the road and checking the rearview mirror, I looked down and watched Bobbi's golden hair move up and down on my lap. It was really something. Of course, this would be the highlight of my night; it all goes downhill from here. But at that moment, we could've been driving toward the edge of a cliff and I would've kept driving forward. My brain's priority list seemed to figure things out on its own.

Finding out where we were.

Getting a blowjob.

Finding out where we were.

Getting a blowjob.

You do the math.

Ah, Bobbi. Bobbi Wright. My high school sweetie. Hotter than hell. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad, with an ass that made the opposing team miss baskets. She was dumber than a box of nails, but who gives a shit? Is intelligence really the deciding factor? No, getting jerked off in the car and then getting blown two minutes later is the determining factor, thank you very much. I remember hoping that we'd make it all the way to graduation, maybe even through college. I guess things don't always turn out the way you hope. Sometimes a big fucking cat runs out in the middle of the road, in front of your car.

This is what happened. Maybe I got off track. On that summer night in 1999, when Bobbi was not quite finished giving me head in my Oldsmobile, the whitest cat you've ever seen jumped out in front of us and I ran over it. It didn't cry out, nor did it squeal. We felt a big bump under the car, followed by the loud crunching of bones. I seem to recall dragging the damn thing for about ten yards, and it took maybe two minutes before we could smell blood-soaked fur. I stopped immediately; I didn't even reach orgasm and this pissed me off. Instead, I zipped my pants back up and looked at the road behind us. All Bobbi and I saw was a big red puddle in our lane. I didn't feel too bad about it. How stupid would the cat have to be to run in front of a moving car with its lights on? I'll be honest – I wasn't really paying attention to the road. Bobbi's mouth did so many things that my eyes might have closed once or twice in ecstasy. And for Christ's sakes, nobody was on this dirt road. I took a wrong turn into Bumfuck, Iowa. So, no hard feelings were coming from me.

However, I did lose my erection from the sheer panic of the whole thing. Bobbi got back up and fixed her hair in the visor mirror. As I continued driving, she didn't seem too pleased.

"Dumb fuckin' cat," I said.

She said nothing at first.

"Shouldn't have been in the road like that," I added.

Still, nothing.

"I mean, did it not see my lights? How could it not see?"

Ah, here. She finally said something.

"It was a cat, Jeremy," she said. "Cats don't know what cars are, okay? It wasn't the cat's fault, it was the driver's."

"Oh, so I'm to blame for the killing of the cat? Jeremy Jones, in the car, with the screeching tires?"

"The cat didn't just kill itself."

"And I seem to recall you giving me head when it happened."

"Jeremy, a good driver should always be one-hundred percent alert while on the road."

"Wow, so Bobbi Wright's a car expert now? The same Bobbi Wright who totaled her daddy's van on the way to cheerleading practice because she was doing her mascara in the rearview mirror and then knocked out a telephone pole? My mom was taping two shows that day and she was pissed when the VCR didn't reset itself after the electricity came back on."

"Poor mom."

"It was a stupid cat. Probably a stray. I didn't see a collar, did you?"

"No. My head was on your cock."

"Fair enough. But it was a big white cat. It looked like a big cotton ball with a tail. Ugly as sin. It's all good. Now let's just find a main road so we can get home, for Christ's sakes. It's getting late."

It was around this time that we heard – and felt – the car rumbling in cycles as I drove, and that meant only one thing: a flat tire. I remember hissing at my dashboard, pounding my fist on the horn a few times and letting out three or four irritated honks. I pulled over onto the side of the dirt road and made a complete stop, but I left my headlights on.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I yelled. That's inaccurate, actually; I might've said it ten more times. Bobbi put on some lipstick with pissed off eyes that seemed to look at me and say, "Look what you did, you dumbass."

"So what do we do now?" she actually said. "You got a spare in the trunk?"

Damn it. I didn't have one. "No."

"Why not?"

"Didn't think I'd ever need it."

"Now we do."

"Yes, thank you."

"So what's the plan?"

Truth be told, I didn't have one. We were about seven or eight miles from where I made the wrong turn, and I couldn't see a single light in any direction. No cars were coming, and there didn't seem to be any houses on this road. There was just darkness, a whole hell of a lot of darkness.

"Well, you have your cell phone?" I asked her.

She got the small blue phone from her purse and looked at the screen. "It says there's no service. We can't get a signal out here."

"Son of a bitch."

"So are we gonna do something? Or are we gonna sit here and wait for coyotes to eat us?"

"Love you too, Bobbi."

"Well, I don't wanna be in the papers tomorrow. Jeremy Jones and Bobbi Wright, eaten by wild coyotes. Let's just figure something out. Is there any way to fix it?"

"Sure, I'll just patch it up with some duct tape."

"How did it happen?"

"Don't know. Maybe the cat? Maybe when its body was being crunched, one of the bones was sharp enough to puncture a hole?"

"Can that happen?"

"Well, something obviously happened," I answered.

"What the fuck, Jeremy? What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know. Let's just get out of the car and walk down the road. There's gotta be a house down here somewhere."

"Get out of the car? On this creepy road with cat guts stinking up the air?"

"Got a better plan?"

She had no answer, so I turned off the lights and we both exited the vehicle. We walked down the old dirt road, and that's when I realized something that wasn't comforting.

This wasn't over yet. This was just beginning. And the events that followed are still haunting me today.

**II. The Cabin. Finishing Business. The Book.**

Walking on the dirt road was like walking on a beach with no ocean: dry and sandy and pointless. After moving for about twenty minutes, Bobbi finally decided to say something.

"This is bullshit," she announced.

"Well, this is how it is. Let's not get in a tizzy. I'm sorry for my little rampage in the car. We need to focus on the situation at hand."

"Yeah? Well here's the situation, Jeremy. It's darker than fuck out here. I don't see a single light, a single car, a single house, or a single fucking person. How's that for your situation at hand?"

She was right, but only for a little while. I'll be honest; the whole ordeal wasn't very scary. I wasn't scared. I was mostly irritated, annoyed, just plain pissed off. My house was nearly fifteen minutes away driving wise, so this shouldn't have been a big deal. Someone would have to drive down this dirt road, eventually.

But, that "eventually" quickly turned into "not fucking likely", and this is where the thunder made its evil presence known in the sky. I remember Bobbi exhaling angrily, looking at me in the night.

"You hear that? It's gonna storm. Let's head back to the car before we get soaked, okay?"

Instead of listening to her I focused my eyes on something I'd been waiting for since we had exited the car: a house. It was dark, sitting quietly off the road to the right of us. None of the lights were on, and as Bobbi and I walked closer, we realized that it was a log cabin. We immediately shared a sigh of relief.

"Thank fucking God," she laughed. "We can knock and then ask to use their phone."

We walked through the gravel driveway and to the front of the old home, and I lightly punched my knuckles two or three times against the door. There was a doorbell, but I couldn't hear it working as I pressed on the button, so I started pounding. Meanwhile, Bobbi stood ten feet from me, pressing her head against the front window, investigating the situation inside.

"Bobbi, what are you doing? You can't just stare into someone's home. You'll freak them out and they won't wanna help us."

"Um, Jeremy?" she asked with slight concern.

"What?"

"I don't think anyone lives here."

I stood next to her and looked into the window as well, and I was startled by what I saw: it was abandoned. Spider webs filled the living room; I'm talking huge webs that you could walk through. Not only that, but a coat of dust covered everything, too, making the interior of the log cabin gray and unwelcoming. Needless to say, I did not want to enter.

"Bobbi, nobody lives here. It's abandoned. Forget it. Look at the webs inside. There are probably spiders all over the place. Let's go."

Thunder struck again after a bright flash of lightning. Bobbi looked at me in disapproval. "Well, we're not going back to the car. It's too far away now. It'll pour on us."

The rain didn't fall just yet. After the next flash of light in the sky, a bolt that streaked across like Zeus's blade, a crash of thunder boomed and the ground shook under our feet. And that's when it started raining.

"Shit," I said expressionless.

Bobbi shook her head. "Look, let's just go inside the log cabin. No one's here. We'll wait it out until the storm passes and then we'll be on our way. You said it yourself... nobody's inside. We'll be safe."

"But Bobbi..."

"Do you wanna be under shelter, or do you wanna get fucking electrocuted?"

"Shelter," I answered.

"Alright then." She tugged on the door knob several times before she finally gave it a violent shove and entered the log cabin. Her act of charge and aggression was extremely sexy, and it turned me on like you wouldn't believe. I followed her into the house and immediately got a whiff of dusty air. I sneezed. We were barely wet; maybe a few drops of rain got on our shoulders. All that mattered was that we were inside and safe. Supposedly.

"Damn," Bobbi said, walking around in the dark. "This place gives me the creeps."

"No shit."

"It's like someone deserted it a thousand years ago."

"Not quite a thousand," I laughed. "Maybe fifteen or twenty."

"I wonder who lived here."

It was peculiar. All of the furniture remained in proper positions; it was like nobody cleared anything out. Whoever lived there just got out without any care for their belongings. Something wasn't right, and to make things all the more inconvenient, we searched every room in the one-story house and didn't find a single phone.

"Oh fuck!" Bobbi yelled.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Please tell me you got the bag of weed out of the backseat."

My heart skipped a beat, my stomach dropped, my face felt hot – all the characteristics of sudden shock.

"Shit, Bobbi. I forgot it."

Yeah, about that. I had a bag of weed in the backseat. Bobbi wasn't stuttering. I had a little side job going on at school, and I made a few bucks here and there, nothing special. Sue me. A lot of kids were into it, and I honestly didn't see the fascination. Bobbi and I smoked some of it on a couple of occasions because I had some grass to spare (I had a lot of dough that week), and aside from the complete relaxation it gave us, it wasn't really a big deal. We rolled it up, lit it, inhaled, and that was it. The situation that night, though, was a big deal.

"You forgot it?" she yelled. "Jeremy, the car's just sitting out there on the road. If a cop drives by and sees it, he might search it! We'll be fucked, Jeremy! He'll copy the license plate number and trace it back to your parents and we'll be fucked! It's your parents' car!"

"Relax," I assured her, although I was personally scared shitless as well. "It's storming like hell out there. No cop in their right mind would walk outside in the pouring rain to look through an abandoned car. Besides, nobody even drives on that road. We were the only car out there for crying out loud." Giving that quick little tale made me feel better, and I could see Bobbi's face getting calmer.

"You're right," she said. "I'm sorry. We're fine."

"You know, it's really coming down out there. Our parents are gonna flip. I don't know if the rain's gonna stop tonight. We might have to spend the night here and look for help in the morning." It really was pouring outside that night. I felt like building a goddamn ark.

"Well," Bobbi said, raising an eyebrow, "in that case, I guess we'll have all night to have some fun."

My heart skipped a beat again, but it wasn't in fear this time, no, it was excitement. "What do you mean?"

"I think we have some unfinished business," she replied. She raised her hand and gave me a "come here" motion with her index finger, and I followed her into the kitchen, staring at her perfect ass the entire time. It moved in a rhythm that even McCartney and Lennon couldn't write.

The kitchen was dusty just like the other room, and there was an island counter in the center with nothing on it. I wondered why she didn't want to find a bedroom in the house, but then I realized the obvious truth: this was so much hotter.

She jumped up and sat on the counter, spreading her legs so I could stand in between them. We wasted no time; we were a couple that thought foreplay was overrated. We kissed passionately for a moment, tongues meeting and hands exploring, and we got to the point where the waiting was over. I took her jeans off myself, then her panties, and then I unzipped my pants as well. We left our shirts on, she had her arms wrapped around me, and then I entered her after a frustrated week of waiting. She moaned, crying out a couple of times, and I remember sweating under my shirt. After five minutes of intense grinding it was over, and we both held each other in satisfaction, her bare bottom sitting on the dust covered island as we breathed heavily together.

"Find a trash can and throw it away," she whispered into my ear, huffing and puffing. I blinked a few times and looked at her.

"Throw what away?"

"The rubber."

This night was just destined to be the worst one ever.

"Jeremy, throw the rubber away."

"I wasn't wearing one."

"Oh, that's just great, dipshit. Real fucking great." She hopped off the counter and pulled her pants up, walking away from me.

"Well Christ, Bobbi, you started it. It was so intense, I wasn't even thinking. Don't get fucking mad at me. I mean, you coulda said something. You couldn't tell that I wasn't wearing one?"

"That's not the point," she snapped, turning her head around. "What if something happened? Huh? Like pregnancy? Ever think about that, Jeremy?"

"Yes, for Christ's sakes, yes," I said, zipping up my pants. Honestly, I wasn't thinking about such things at the moment. I was getting a piece of ass; this was number one on my brain's computer task list. But looking back, I wasn't realizing the seriousness of the situation. If I had to break such news to my parents, or if it was announced in the paper that Bobbi Wright and Jeremy Jones were both seventeen and having a kid, I probably would've stopped myself. But, man oh man; you should've seen her that night, jumping up on that counter. I owed it to every man in the world. You would've done the same.

"Whatever," Bobbi said. "I'll just get a pill tomorrow. Your ass is paying for it. Let's just wait for the rain to stop and we'll figure things out."

I agreed with her, and I didn't touch her for several minutes, in fact, I ignored her until she sat on the old couch in the family room and noticed a book with a dusty cover sitting on a coffee table next to her.

"Too bad there's no light in this fucking place," she said, picking up the book and wiping off the cover. "I could catch up on some light reading."

I don't even know why she said that; she hadn't read a book since elementary, and the only reason she passed her literature reports in high school is because she supposedly gave the male English teachers head after school – or so the rumors said. Nonetheless, I searched for a light switch in the room, and when I found one on a wall, I flicked it several times and nothing happened. "No electricity," I said with Einstein intelligence.

She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and used the light on the screen to see the pages. Still, no reception. "Hmm," she muttered, "it's not a book. It's a diary."

"A diary?" I asked. Honestly, I didn't give two shits.

"Yeah, it says it was written by Oliver McGill. It's written by hand. It must be his journal."

"Oliver McGill," I repeated. The name meant nothing to me – never heard of him.

"He's got these names written in here," Bobbi continued. "It's like a family tree or something. Check this out."

"No thanks," I said, still standing. "Oliver McGill and his family tree can keep to themselves."

"These names are so weird, though," she said as she continued reading. "Andre, Lexi, Scrapper, Midnite, Sinclair, Cupcake... there's gotta be at least twenty of these names in here."

"Did you say 'Scrapper'?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Did you say 'Cupcake'?"

"Yes."

"Okay, well obviously those aren't people names," I declared, continuing my Einstein intelligence.

"So what are they?" she asked.

"Hell if I know, babe. Guinea pigs? Rabbits? Pet worms? Who knows? Maybe Oliver McGill had an ant farm."

Before I could spit another sarcastic remark, something happened that made Bobbi jump out of her seat, and made me almost piss my pants. Outside, in the pouring rain, the brightest light you've ever seen shined through the front window and almost blinded us. What happened next is very difficult for me to tell you.

**III. Storm. Sinclair. Separation.**

You see, the storm didn't want to stop. It insisted on thundering and raining the entire night. Lightning flashed through the sky, shining through the windows, but there was a different light that suddenly shined into the log cabin home, something brighter, something that wouldn't go away. As I walked closer to the front door, listening to Bobbi breathe heavier than when we fucked a few minutes ago, I discovered what this majestic illumination was. Shining its headlights into the house, a red pickup truck sat with its engine on and its horn honking. I opened the door as Bobbi stood behind me in panic, holding onto my shoulders for dear life. It was an old truck, maybe from the seventies, and it wasn't long before my trembling girlfriend and I watched the driver get out to say hello to us.

"Howdy folks!" he said cheerfully with a southern twang. He was a big man who had hands covered in black grease from working, jean overalls with holes in the knees, and a plain red ball cap. His beer gut looked like a ticking time bomb, and his rugged old face had enough craters to stage another moon landing. "I done saw your car parked down the road... thought you guys might need a hand. That is your car, right?" He stood without care as rain poured on him while Bobbi and I stood dry in the doorway.

"How did you know we were in here?" I asked with slight hesitation.

"Oh, I was driving by and saw you two through the front window, figured you's needed some help. My name's Hank."

Finally, I shook Hank's hand with a smile on my face. "Boy, are we glad to see you. We've been waiting it out in this place ever since we got the flat. The storm came and we got caught... we had no choice."

Hank's cheery face disappeared as he stepped closer to us. "I wouldn't stay in this here house much longer. I wouldn't if I was you. Come on, I'll give y'all a lift to your car. I got me a donut in the back of my truck. Might fit on there. I'll fix y'all up."

Bobbi tapped me on the back in excitement as we both ran outside in the rain. "Thank God," she yelled. "I thought we'd spend all night in this dusty hellhole."

We followed Hank to his truck and hopped in. "Opus 17" by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons was playing along with static on the radio. I smelled spilt coffee and noticed a Penthouse magazine hanging from the driver's side visor. I sat in the middle of Bobbi and him, and just before the big man switched gears to reverse, I brought up the topic that made his face sour. "If you don't mind me asking, what were you talking about when you mentioned the house?"

"What do you mean?" Hank asked, watching the rearview mirror as he backed up.

"Well, you said you wouldn't stay there. What exactly is wrong with it?"

Bobbi poked me in the side as if to say, "Don't piss him off." After all, he was bigger than both of us combined.

"Place is evil," he simply said.

"Evil?" I asked, suddenly intrigued. "Well, I'm a sucker for scary stories. Care to tell us more?"

"If y'all insist." Hank was driving extremely slow in the storm; it would've taken ten minutes to get to the car. "Happened thirty or so years back. Guy named McGill. Oliver McGill, I reckon. Quiet guy. Never left his house. Had a shit load of cats."

I looked at Bobbi as her eyes got a little wide. "Did you say cats?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am, had about twenty or so. Nobody in the area really liked him, always was rude when we tried to talk to him. All he cared about was the cats. Had some weird ass names for 'em too. I was working on his house a couple years before it happened, painting the outside, and he would call for them. Scrapper, Lexi, I reckon one was called Midnite. But Sinclair was his favorite... he said that one was the leader of the others. I reckon he was the oldest one."

"What did he look like?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't remember too clearly. I think he was big and white... like a big cotton ball with a tail."

Bobbi and I looked at each other in an uncomfortable manner. That description sounded a lot like the cat we ran over earlier in the night.

"Um, if you don't mind, what exactly happened to McGill?"

Hank shook his head as he kept both greasy hands on the wheel. "Boy, I reckon you's askin' for trouble. You don't wanna know. Trust me."

"What if I had to know?" I asked.

"Fine, boy. But don't blame me if somethin' happens. Couple years after I painted his house, nobody really heard anything from him. He just wanted to stay in that there house with all his cats and just be left alone. One night, he apparently went crazy, killed all of his cats with a butcher knife, went outside and hung himself out back from a tree. Cops found him hangin' there in the morning. They went inside the house and saw all twenty cats chopped up to pieces all over the damn place, even Sinclair. They didn't even tell that whole story in the papers... too gruesome. The only reason I know is because Deputy Richards is a good friend of mine. Anyways, people drive down this here road and talk about strange shit going on. One guy died on this road a couple years back. His face was all slashed up like claws got to him. They say Oliver was into some scary shit, with séances and voodoo dolls and potions... they say he done put a curse on all his cats, like when he died, his spirit would be in all the cats, and an evil fuckin' spirit it was, too... and once he was inside all the cats, the cats would never be able to die. They just live forever."

"That's strange," I said, looking at Bobbi. She looked extremely discomforted. "Do you believe that story, Hank?"

"I believe it enough to avoid this here road at all costs."

Before Hank could tell anymore of the story, we felt a loud bang burst out from under the red truck, and the big man tried everything in his power to keep control of it. Within seconds, the truck swerved and zigzagged until it ran off the road and slammed into a small ditch. We were all okay, just a little shaken. The real bitch of it was that we were only half way to my car, and it was still pouring like a madman.

"What the fuck just happened?" Hank yelled out. Poor Bobbi was shaking next to me, clinging onto my arm.

"Can we get out of here?" I asked the big man.

"Don't know. Might be too muddy from the rain." He tried starting the truck back up, but it was no use. Smoke was rising from the hood; it was toast. "Goddammit!" Hank yelled. "Alright folks, I guess we'll have to grab the donut from the back and walk the rest of the way. I think I got a jack back there too, I reckon."

"Oh, it's no problem... I have a jack in my trunk," I replied.

Hank quickly got out of the truck, his feet landing in a deep puddle of mud and rain. "These here are my favorite goddamn shoes," he complained to himself. He started walking to the back of his pickup and I looked at Bobbi as we continued sitting in the front.

"Babe, I want you to stay here, okay? I'm just gonna get out and help him. We'll only be a few seconds, and then you can come out and we'll all walk to my car together, okay?"

She nodded her head, but I could tell she didn't like the idea. I scooted over to the driver's seat and exited the truck, feeling cold rain hit the top of my head. I too landed in muddy waters, pissed off and frustrated. I walked to the back, standing next to Hank as he opened up the back hitch.

"You carry the tire... I'll carry this," he said, holding up something that I truly wasn't expecting. It was a shotgun, and a big ass one at that. He rolled the tire over to me and I caught it, holding the round slab of rubber uncomfortably. As Hank closed up the back hitch, I noticed a wooden baseball bat lying on the truck bed as well. This was not as concerning as the weapon Hank was holding, however.

"What's the shotgun for?" I asked.

"Never know when you're gonna need it," Hank replied. "I figure if the donut works and you make it off the road safe, maybe ya'll could give me a lift to the police station. Deputy Richards will probably help me out with some of his boys."

I smiled warmly, feeling forever in his debt. "I'd be happy to." I looked up at the front of the truck and saw that Bobbi was still sitting calmly. I was proud of her; seventeen year-old girls aren't supposed to be stranded in a ditch during a heavy storm with a strange hillbilly. She was doing well. "Hey babe! We're ready when you are!"

She immediately opened the passenger door and got out, looking at me in excitement. "So the donut's gonna fit?"

"Not so sure," Hank responded. "It most likely will, but you never know."

Before Bobbi, Hank, or I could make another peep, we saw something dash across the road and jump into the air, landing directly on Hank's chest. I flinched back in shock, Bobbi screamed, and Hank's face turned white as a ghost. He dropped his shotgun, and I dropped the tire. Sinking its claws into the poor man's neck was a large white cat, and there was something on its back that almost made my heart pound out of its chest. The cat had a black streak horizontally on his fur, and Bobbi and I could clearly tell that it was a tire mark. It was Sinclair. It was the cat we ran over and killed. There he was, clinging onto Hank's chest as the petrified man screamed in terror. This didn't make sense.

"Get it off! Get this fuckin' thing off me!"

I didn't know what to do; I was frozen. I simply looked at Bobbi and told her to run. "Get outta here, Bobbi! Find somewhere safe!"

"I'm not goin' anywhere! I'm not leaving you!"

"Bobbi, go! I'll find you! Find shelter!"

"I'm going back to the house!"

"No! Bobbi, don't! Bobbi!"

Before I could stop her, she was already gone, running back to Oliver McGill's log cabin. I looked at Hank, whose arms were flying around trying to beat the cat off of him. "Get the fuckin' thing off me! Help! Help goddammit!"

I couldn't pick up the shotgun because I didn't want to blow the poor man's head off, so I remembered the baseball bat in the truck bed and went after it. I went to the side, picked it up without any trouble and ran back to Hank. To my surprise, Hank was running in circles, trying to get the undead animal off his chest. I tried to meet him with the bat in my hand, but he was moving too fast, running aimlessly in delirium.

"Hank! Stop! Let me hit the damn thing!"

"Help! Help! Get it off! It's biting me! It's fuckin' biting me!"

I didn't have a good shot; I honestly didn't want to hit him and cause any more pain, so I watched the cat get angrier, and with each scream that Hank gave, Sinclair dug his claws into the man's chest even deeper. It crawled up to his face and started attacking; I could see blood running down the front of his overalls, mixing in with rain. His screams turned into gargles, and he stopped running. He simply stood there as Sinclair got on top of his head, and he buried his sharp teeth into Hank's face. Within seconds, seconds that felt like eternity, I watched in horror as Sinclair finally let go of Hank. The white cat dropped to the rainy ground and ran away from me before I could smack it with the baseball bat. The thing that terrified me the most, though, was that Sinclair was running in the same direction that Bobbi went: back to the house. I had no time to think; I ran to Hank, hoping that I could help him. When I got within a few inches of him, I was startled by what I saw. The poor man's right eye was missing, and the left one was dangling from the socket, resting against his cheek.

"I... I can't... I... I can't see anything," Hank cried. He sounded so sad, like he wasn't even in pain.

"It's okay, buddy," I said, staring at him as he stood there. I lowered my eyes to look at his chest and I simply gasped. Sinclair had dug a deep hole right between both breasts, and I could see the poor man's exposed heart beating, and with each pump of blood a crimson river flowed down his overalls like a waterfall straight to hell. He fell to the ground and lay there, motionless. "It... it doesn't... hurt."

"I'm so sorry man... I'm sorry," I cried. Tears were streaming down my face. I couldn't help it.

"You... you go help her... you go stop them... They's gonna kill her... stop the cats, boy. Stop them." Before I could answer him, I watched Hank's exposed heart stop beating. The poor man was blind and dead.

I could barely stand. My knees were shaking harder than the first time I slow danced with Bobbi on Homecoming night. She was gone from me now, separated, and I knew I had to save her. I looked down and picked up Hank's shotgun; the baseball bat was in my other hand so I tucked it in the back of my pants. Holding the gun, I walked back to the bed of the pickup truck and looked for more supplies. There was a red gas can. I took it. I already had a lighter in my pocket from smoking some of the weed in my backseat.

Shotgun. Check.

Baseball bat. Check.

Gas can. Check.

Lighter. Check.

As the hard rain fell on me in the center of the road, I looked up to the sky and screamed at the top of my lungs. I held everything firmly and began sprinting back to Oliver McGill's house.

**IV. The Return. The Stand. The Taking.**

The rain started going away. It was about damn time. Storm clouds separated and I could see stars in the sky. They made the dirt road easier to see as I ran faster than ever before in my life. I held the shotgun in one hand and the gas can in the other; the baseball bat was still firmly tucked in the back of my pants. I didn't really have a plan, you see, I just wanted to kill all twenty of those demonic cats, save Bobbi, and I especially wanted to kill Sinclair with a huge smile on my face. I suppose Sinclair was the leader of the other nineteen cats, since he was Oliver McGill's favorite. As I look back at what Hank said, I'm just now putting the pieces together and formulating how this all works. Since Oliver was the town's nut, and he was into voodoo, witchcraft, séances, potions, and other shit like that, I suppose the curse he put on the twenty cats goes something like this: He knew he was going to die fairly soon, maybe of cancer (who knows?), so he realized that the only way to live after death was by killing his cats, distributing his own soul into all of them and raising them from the dead so a piece of him could be in each one, and that way they could live forever with him inside them. Say what you want. It sounds like hocus-pocus bullshit, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me anymore.

I reached the log cabin without even taking time to catch my breath. I crashed through the front door and the most eerie feeling came over me. I had returned. I was back in the hellish house. I screamed for Bobbi a dozen times, hoping to hear a response. There was nothing. I didn't know where the hell she went; she said she was going back to the house after I told her to seek shelter, so I assumed she came back here. Apparently she didn't, as there were no replies to my yells. "Bobbi! Bobbi! Where are you, babe?" Nothing. Nothing at all. Assumptions are dangerous things; expecting one thing and seeing something quite different is the trouble with that. I'm a prime example of this. As I searched the dark, dusty home, I looked on the floor and noticed paw prints everywhere around me. They were different sizes, from different cats, all imprinted in the dust. The thing that made me shake in fear was something else: blood stains on the floor, with the paw prints. One stain wasn't a stain at all; it was a fresh, wet streak that went all the way to another room, as if someone's body had been dragged. Instead of having unrealistic assumptions, I now assumed the worst.

I followed the bloody streak all the way to the other room, which was the bathroom, and I slowly made it to the doorway to discover what had happened. I dropped the shotgun and the gas can immediately, not even hearing them hit the floor, and I almost collapsed. Bobbi was lying on the bathroom rug. The mirror above the sink had been shattered and pieces of it were sticking out of her. I could see my reflection in those red-stained shards; I saw a terrified face that looked nothing like mine. That's because I'd never been that scared before. I walked to her, kneeling down and shaking beyond comprehension. "Bobbi," I cried. "Oh... oh God... Bobbi."

The cats mutilated her. Her face was barely recognizable; her eyes, nose, and mouth were all replaced by red slashes. Her perfect blonde hair now had orange streaks of blood in it. I put my index finger up to her neck. There was no pulse. Some of the shards of mirror were sticking out of her chest, out of her arms, her legs, one even pinned her right hand down on the floor. I began sobbing like never before. Tears just exploded out of me. I couldn't breathe; I thought I was choking. The biggest piece of mirror, the one I believe finished her off, was the one that was pierced all the way through the center of her neck. There was no helping her. She was gone.

I stood back up, walked out of the bathroom screaming, and picked up the shotgun. I left the gas can behind. I decided to use it later. I walked back into the living room; that's where Bobbi had been reading Oliver McGill's diary. It was still there, sitting on the coffee table. I picked it up with my free hand and opened it. I set the shotgun on the couch so I could flip through the pages.

Sinclair. Midnite. Shadow. Caroline. Andre. Samson. Moe. Lexi. Scrapper. Sox. Frito. Larry. Smokey. Arnold. Jack. Shemp. Ashley. Sammy. Cupcake. Daisy.

I dropped the diary and picked the shotgun back up. I cocked it so I could be ready to fire, watching a red shell case fly out.

"Come on! Let's go! Get out here! Let's go... come on." I slowly walked around the house, holding the shotgun firmly in both hands.

"You motherfuckers... get out here."

It was dark inside, just as before. I walked into the kitchen, and it was hard seeing Bobbi's ass print on the dusty counter top from when we had sex. I cried some more.

"You little fuckers."

I stopped immediately because I thought I heard something behind me.

Meow.

I turned around. I saw nothing.

Meow.

I heard it behind me. I turned around. Nothing.

Meow.

It was all around me. I couldn't see.

Meow.

I kept the shotgun in my hand, waving it around, ready to fire. Instead of hearing another cat, I suddenly heard a man's voice whisper in my ear. I didn't make out any words, but I swore I heard a man's voice. I heard it again, coming in front of me. He was talking, almost singing. He was singing about Sinclair. I was so scared, I could barely walk forward. I couldn't see anything, but I could guess that the voice belonged to Oliver McGill, and he was singing a ballad about his favorite cat. He kept repeating it over and over, chilling me to the bone. It was a ballad for Sinclair.

"Sinclair, Sinclair,

you're going to scare

whoever walks into this house.

You'll wave your paws

and sink your claws,

you'd rather kill people than a mouse."

I only remember it because he was singing it nonstop. I walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room and that's when the terror went to a whole other level. There were twenty pairs of eyes, bright, yellow eyes, all staring at me in the darkness. Forty eyes, ready to attack. I walked closer with the shotgun and finally saw them. One was all black; I imagine that was Midnite. One was all gray, possibly Shadow. I think Scrapper was the one with different colors spotted all over him, browns, grays, and blacks. I saw Sinclair, too, sitting in front of the other nineteen, looking like he was waiting to make the command to charge at me. I also noticed that Sinclair had something in his mouth, and it was dangling. I looked closer and realized what it was: Hank's right eye.

"Sinclair, Sinclair,

the people stare

as you kill them one by one.

The cats always help

while the victims yelp,

and all twenty of you have fun."

I picked a cat and started firing. I think I missed, and all of them scattered around the room. They were now on all sides of me. I cocked the gun and fired again, yelling at them. I hit one directly in the head, blowing him to pieces. It was a yellow cat; I'm assuming it was Daisy. Another cat jumped up after me but I dodged him in time. I pointed the shotgun down to where he landed and blasted him across the room. I couldn't see Sinclair anywhere. It seemed like he was letting his other nineteen friends do the work.

"Sinclair, Sinclair,

you're going to scare

whoever walks into this house.

You'll wave your paws

and sink your claws,

you'd rather kill people than a mouse."

The black cat, Midnite, sunk his claws into my left leg, and I cried out in pain. Another cat attached himself to my right leg. Another one jumped onto my back, and it felt like ten razor sharp needles digging into me. I jumped around, still holding the shotgun, and I shot Midnite in the back, splattering him all over the floor. I shot the other one in the head, splashing his brains on my jeans. The third one was still on my back. I twisted around, jumping in circles, and I finally decided to let myself fall down. I landed on my back and listened to the cat squish underneath me, its bones crunching and oozing. I had killed five already. Fifteen more to go.

"Sinclair, Sinclair,

the people stare

as you kill them one by one.

The cats always help

while the victims yelp,

and all twenty of you have fun."

I got back up and removed the baseball bat from my pants. I couldn't cock the shotgun anymore. I was out of bullets. I would have to use the bat from here. I remember feeling blood drip down my ankles, as well as down my back. It hurt like hell, but there was no time to think.

"Come on," I pleaded. "Come on... come and get me. Come here you fucking demons. Come to me."

One of the cats jumped toward me from my left side, and I smacked him with my bat harder than Derek Jeter hitting one out of the park. The cat flew through one of the glass windows, and it sliced him in half along the way.

Another one jumped up, and I pounded him down, down to the floor. I hit him several times until he was just a puddle of blood and hair. Two more down. Thirteen to go. And I wasn't even remotely tired. I was sweating like hell, no doubt, but I wasn't about to slow down. Not just yet.

It was weird. The last thirteen cats weren't coming after me. They just stood there, all in a line, staring up at me. It took me a second to understand, but then it all made sense. Sinclair came into the room, looking into my eyes like he was ready. The rest were just going to enjoy the show. They had front row, after all.

The white cat jumped up and I hit him with the bat. He fell to the floor but it didn't affect him. He jumped back up and I hit him again, smacking him harder than before. The third time he jumped up was when I thought I was finally making an impact. I belted him with all my might and Sinclair slammed onto the floor hard, lying there for a few moments, breathing heavily. I stood there, holding the bat, ready for more.

Instead of Sinclair jumping after me again, I saw something that made me almost faint. I couldn't believe it. I had killed seven cats already, but those seven cats were all getting back up. They all looked okay again, and they were all walking toward me.

"It's impossible," I said. "It's fucking impossible."

I was no longer sure if I could do this all again. I wouldn't last much longer. Before they could dodge after me, I ran back to the bathroom because I had left the gas can in the doorway. I sprinted to it and picked it up, trying not to glance at Bobbi's disfigured body on the floor. I came back to the twenty cats and looked at them. They looked at me. I removed the yellow cap off of the can and started pouring gasoline all over them. They just stood there without moving, examining what I was doing with deep thought. I poured it out until the fucking can had not a single drop left in it. The cats were soaked, and I smiled. Slowly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my lighter. I flicked it and saw a tiny flame shoot out.

"Go to hell, pussies."

I threw the lighter at them and they all went up in flames, running around like little fireballs, squealing and crying and meowing their little evil asses off. I laughed as the fire spread, covering almost the entire living room. I had just enough space to make my escape, but something happened. It startled me. The cats started floating in the air, rising up off the floor, flying around me. It's like they wouldn't let me leave. They were blocking me. They were flying like ghosts, and I felt the breeze of them as they moved together in circles. Eventually, they kept moving until they looked like wind, all fused together. The wind was fast and violent, moving all around me, until it stopped moving in circles and started flying in one place, creating the outline of a tall figure in front of me. The figure was a man, a man made of wind, and as he continued to form into his final state, I realized who it was. Oliver McGill, or the ghost of Oliver McGill, I suppose. He stared at me with dissatisfaction, shaking his head. I was mesmerized, fully transfixed into the apparition's eyes. He flew into me, entering my body, taking over me. I could feel him inside. I could feel the twenty cats inside me, too. I could feel Sinclair. It's like they were all a part of me now. The fire was gone, the wind was gone, and the cats were gone.

It was over. Everything was silent. I dropped the bat and just stood there, feeling like my body was invaded. I could feel them. It felt horrible.

I heard a knock on the door. I walked over and opened it. It was a police officer, and he was staring at me. I didn't like how he stared.

"Hello there, young man. Is everything alright? We got a few reports of a disturbance in this house. I saw a car parked about ten minutes from here. Does that belong to you?"

"What is your name?" I simply asked.

He paused for a second before answering. "I'm Deputy Richards. Is there something wrong? Can I help you?"

I looked deep into his eyes, discovering his soul. "No. You can't help me. Nothing can help me. And nothing is wrong."

I jumped forward and tackled him to the ground. He tried to fight me off, but he was no match. It wasn't just me who was pinning him down. It was Oliver McGill. It was Sinclair. It was Midnite. And it was eighteen other cats that were all inside me, controlling me, taking me, using me. It started to feel good. I held up my hands like they were claws and started scratching the Deputy's face.

Like I said: getting lost never felt so good.

Meow.


End file.
